


Bring him home, Keith.

by xyma



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Just them being sad, M/M, Pre-Voltron, Shiro’s funeral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 10:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15387297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xyma/pseuds/xyma
Summary: The downpour of rain does little to help the grief Adam and Keith feel over the news of Shiro as they stand infront of a grave with no body.“Thank you,” Adam says under his breath, “For not giving up on him.”“He never gave up on me, so why should I?”Adam smiles, albeit sadly, moved by keith’s loyalty.





	Bring him home, Keith.

Adam holds the umbrella under the heavy downpour, his shoes and pants cuff soaked and dirtied with mud under his feet. He could barely see through the lens of his glasses, and it wasn’t because of the rain.

 

He stands before a grave with no body, hours long gone by since the ceremony ended. The sun was beginning to set, the dark of the clouds and the rain covering the sun that was reaching the horizon.

 

He was alone, left with just the picture frame of the man he had once called home.

 

News of his and Shiro’s break up was a word kept under wraps. Their immediate circle knew, but they kept it in respected silence to avoid attention and further questioning from the upper authorities. It was enough that he chose the stars. He respected his decision.

 

_Fair enough._ Adam never really thought the earth deserved him.

 

He grimaces at remembering how they parted. If he should have been more adamant in making the pilot stay, or at least kissed and held him longer knowing that it would be the last. Regardless, the truth was that he let him go, and not once did Takashi Shirogane look back.

 

Maybe Adam should’ve known that the stars would want someone like him. That Shiro, even in death, would hang the stars and leave a name no one could ever forget. How painfully poetic it was that the space he had loved more than any one or thing would want to keep him.

 

There’s nothing he could do to bring him back.

 

He hears hurried steps behind him, shoes squishing against the mud underneath. He turns his head to see and finds a boy drenched in rain.

 

Keith, in the zip-up hoodie he always remembered him wearing, had no umbrella nor a coat to shield himself from the rain. He stopped a foot short from him, breath heaving and heart wracking against his chest. His eyes looked to be constantly searching, in shock or perhaps in disbelief. They’re hazed, and if Adam wasn’t there maybe Keith would still believe he was still living a bad dream.

 

He wasn’t wearing black.

 

If anything, Keith would understand most what he felt. To lose someone who hung the stars for you, defied and challenged authorities for what is right for you. Someone who meant the vast galaxy to you. Adam wondered if Keith ever knew and tried to stop him, too. The boy was asked to speak in the burial, and Adam knew he couldn’t force him. Not when he refused to even leave his room. He somehow wished he had the same luxury to do so, but when Iverson called him asking if he wanted to help for the burial, he couldn’t find it in himself to say no. Out of grief, responsibility, or out of love, he couldn’t tell.

 

But Keith was here, still deeply weighed by the course of events prior, the grief a wound still fresh.

 

Adam thought to himself that he’s brave. Years of hearing of what he’s been through and seeing him blossom into a fighter pilot beyond his years could only make himself as fond of him as Shiro was. Aside from Shiro, Adam knew he knew the most about Keith because of him. Maybe he should take on the responsibility in Shiro’s place to propel Keith forward. It might be what Shiro would want.

 

“Keith—“

 

“Don’t.”

 

He stills, caught by surprise by the curt interjection. No word follows but the thud of knees against the ground. He sees Keith grasping at the grass before him, knuckles white and hands shaking.

 

If it weren’t for the rain, he would be able to see the tears going down his cheeks.

 

“He’s not gone.”, Keith says, choking out a sob.

 

“Keith...”

 

“He’s not gone!” A shout, followed by labored breathing and a choke. His voice softens. “I know it.. I just know it.”

 

“... You think he’s still out there?” Adam says carefully, knowing that Keith, of all people, does not need to be told how to grieve. Not after everything he’s been through.

 

“He’s got to be out there somewhere.”

 

“Would you have stopped him?”, he asks, but he knows it’s a question for himself. The silence weighs between them. Adam strains to hear his response under the loud pattering of rain.

 

“No. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I tried.”

 

They stand in unperturbed silence, save for the heavy fall of raindrops. Adam steps closer to give protection under his umbrella to Keith, holding a comment on sitting on the mud. They don’t speak a word for a long while, staring down for the man in question and in respect to one another’s grief.

 

“I’m going to find him.”, Keith says, standing up.

 

“Keith...” Adam loses the words when the boy looks at him, determination heavy and without doubt in his eyes. He remembers that look from when Shiro told him his decision to fly to Kerberos. It leaves an ache in his chest. He still regrets presenting that ultimatum in the brink of his desperation. It was the one way he never wanted to hurt Shiro.

 

Shiro deserved better than his half-baked conviction. That, he’s come to terms with.

 

“They gave up on them. And if they... and you... aren’t going to keep trying, then I will.”

 

He finds the answers there, in the assured yet broken testament the younger boy made. Seeing him be so sure of something that might as well be impossible makes him want to believe that he’s right. Makes a small part of him think that it’s true — that Shiro is still out there. Still whole. Still alive. That this could not possibly be the end of Takashi Shirogane, golden boy of the garrison, sun of their lives.

 

“Thank you.”, he says under his breath, “For not giving up on him.”

 

“He never gave up on me, so why should I?”

 

Adam smiles the first time that day, albeit sadly, moved by Keith’s loyalty. While he stood there in grief and sorrow, the boy Shiro had supported all this time is determined to bring him home. There’s no one who could possibly do more than him. Not when Shiro is and has been for the longest time, Keith’s everything.

 

He has a feeling that Keith can do something, one way or another. His unabashed love challenging the vast expanse of space makes him believe in it.

 

“Bring him home, Keith.”

 

“I will, even if it kills me.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> done with no research during a wifi cut at my place, so i’m sorry for any accuracies! drop a comment or a question below to let me know what you think!


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